Campaign promotes new clean energy technique

15 September 2022
Our recent media campaign promoted a new technique that uses solar technology and plasmonics to convert carbon dioxide into clean fuel.

This media campaign for the SPOTLIGHT project helped to position the technology consortium as an industry leader in clean energy and light science, combining several optical and chemical-processing innovations. Our campaign generated 25 pieces of media coverage with an audience of nearly 4 million monthly readers with worldwide coverage.

The campaign focused on the simple news angle of how the project was turning harmful greenhouse gases like CO2 into clean, useful energy products using sunlight. If successful, the project would potentially convert 2.7 billion tonnes of CO2 into clean fuel each year. The campaign reached science, technology and innovation titles like IEEE spectrum, Silicon Republic, Euractiv, The Infographics Show, Compound SemiconductorScience Business, AZO Cleantech, New Electronics, and Nanowerk.

Account Director at Matter PR, Sam Young, said:

“Our media campaign showcased the excellent work the EU-funded SPOTLIGHT project and the Photonics21 secretariat are doing to tackle one of the biggest societal challenges of our day, climate change.

“The Matter PR team showcased the innovative technologies SPOTLIGHT are working on to turn carbon dioxide and green hydrogen into clean fuels using sunlight, artificial lighting, and plasmonics. If successful, the project will use the sun’s energy to drive chemical reactions that can convert substances like water, carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and hydrogen into fuels.”

Thought Leadership

The success of the media campaign allowed the Matter PR team to develop the news into a thought leadership article for SPOTLIGHT to showcase their expertise in turning carbon dioxide and green hydrogen into renewable energy. Featured on the AZO Optics Thought Leaders series, the SPOTLIGHT project coordinator Nicole Meulendijks gave an in-depth interview to discuss how sunlight and photonic light sources, like LEDs, are providing solutions to some of the biggest societal challenges around energy and climate we are currently facing.

Nicole Meulendijks said:

“The Matter PR team did a great job of creating a media coverage to raise the profile of the SPOTLIGHT consortium. Not only was the technology, science and innovation coverage impressive, but also, our feature in a Thought Leadership article was a nice surprise.

“After 2050, substantial net-negative CO2 emissions need to be realized to comply with the ambition of not letting the average atmospheric temperature increase exceed 1.5 °C. This means that more CO2 has to be taken out of the atmosphere than human activities emit into it. The chemical industry must reduce greenhouse gas emissions to achieve climate neutrality in 2050. By using photonic devices for sunlight-driven processes to convert CO2 into useful energy carriers, a significant contribution can be made towards reaching the climate goals.”

From Public Outreach to Stakeholder Engagement, Matter PR specialises in helping organisations translate complex scientific projects into compelling stories which help communicate the importance and potential impact of their work.

Established in 2013, Matter PR is one of the only communications agencies specialising solely in engineering, science and technology. Contact us today to see how we can help you with your communications activities.